A PM in his labyrinth

All politicians are complex, but this outstanding book attempts to deconstruct the personality, life and times of one of the most complicated individuals to have become India's Prime Minister.

- ADITI PHADNIS

That Atal Bihari Vajpayee was considered the "right man in the wrong party" is an overdone cliché. The book explores the restlessness of a personality who played a pivotal role in insinuating a new way of thinking into power politics and the Indian system — all the time racked by self-doubt.

This is a sequel to an earlier book where the author traces Vajpayee's beginnings but ends that volume at 1977 when the Jana Sangh formally joined the central government with Vajpayee as minister of external affairs. However, the volume stands alone successfully as it picks up the thread from 1977 and charts out how India arrived at its present political moment. It covers the years from the Janata Party's installation as the first non-Congress government until Vajpayee's final vote against the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement in 2008. The preface covers the later years.